Last month, Islamic State (IS) attacked a group of Coptic Christians returning from a religious retreat in rural Egypt; an American citizen was among the 28 murdered. This was just the latest in a bloody two-year terror campaign that jihadists have been waging against the country’s principal religious minority. Nina Shea writes:
Islamic State’s Egyptian franchise, led by local extremists, aims to attract the country’s Sunni Muslim population not by playing up the country’s economic grievances or Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians but by portraying the Copts as a fifth column of so-called infidels in their midst. Despite the fact that the Copts do not have militias of their own, IS propaganda from last March accused them of receiving “huge” amounts of cash and weapons, and aspiring to take control over rich areas in Egypt in order to create their independent Christian state, “which is similar to the Jewish Zionist state.” . . .
Although the Copts are supposed to be equal [to Muslims] under Egyptian law, in practice they are often treated like second-class citizens. They are widely disparaged and discriminated against in the official textbooks, state-controlled media, and government-supported mosques, as well as in the administration of justice and access to important government jobs. This in turn fosters a culture of violence against them. An example last year involved Coptic schoolchildren who taped a 30-second cellphone video of themselves mocking IS. After angry mobs rioted at their homes, they and their teacher were arrested and sentenced up to five years in prison for blasphemy. . . .
IS has already cleansed northern Sinai of its small Christian population. As it attempts to terrorize millions of Copts away from the rest of Egypt through suicide and other attacks, massive refugee flows into Israel, Jordan, and across the Mediterranean into Europe could follow. The Egyptian military could be forced to fight an asymmetrical war against IS and other extremists in Alexandria, Cairo, Giza, Minya, and other areas where Copts live, damaging the largest Arab country’s already struggling economy and fragile social fabric. Eventually the polarization within the Muslim community could even lead to open civil war along ideological lines. There should be no confusion: the fate of the Copts is now the main measure of the effectiveness of Sisi’s anti-IS policies. The world needs to be playing close attention.
Read more on Hudson: https://www.hudson.org/research/13701-do-copts-have-a-future-in-egypt